Hmm... other than a rather pants session today (thank you, Branston Beans, and 6hrs sleep), where I did some snatch and clean'n'jerk work (working sets of 70kg and 95kg triples), I figured I'd have a look back across my training this year and see how badly I know I have done.
So where was I 12 months ago?
As with my "first to 90kg" thread, this will essentially be a progress log of my lifting and weight over the next twelve months. It was also an excuse to play with some attempted anabolic lighting, but it turned out that it made my abz disappear.
I recently gave the work gym instructor (SnC coach for Cambridge University Rugby and Rowing Clubs) a good laugh (as well as those in the GymRats thread) by setting myself the target of doubling my powerlifting totals in a year.
Can lift this:
BACK SQUAT: 120kg
DEADLIFT: 130kg
BENCH PRESS: 85kg
The idea is to see how close to double these lifts I can get in a year. The weights listed are also rep-able, so I'm going to start by saying "double the rep-able weight" and assuming any of you are still conscious despite laughing your heads off, I may relax this to 1RM.
I currently eat a relatively clean calorie excess, and my routine consists of pretty much only compound movements along the lines of:
So what have I managed to achieve in 12 months?
BACK SQUAT: 150kg
DEADLIFT: 170kg
BENCH PRESS: 100kg
So not much. 
And that was all done before Christmas 2012. Since early this year (can't remember when - probably around February?), I've opted for a 5-day regime, biased almost exclusively to Olympic lifting... which has resulted in the following:
POWER CLEAN: 110kg
SNATCH: 80kg
These were brute force lifts that - in the grand scheme of things - were fun, but pretty awful from a technical standpoint. Dpes that matter? Possibly not to some, but considering I want to compete as an Olympic lifter now (not in the Olympics, but...), not ideal. So I have spent the past three/four months undoing all of that work by re-adjusting my technique to make sure it scales more.
When I train now, my consistency is a lot better - I can snatch 70kg as a working weight without any issues at all, and can clean'n'jerk (not this morning, however - I couldn't brain at all...) 100kg, whereas before, powersnatching 80kg was pretty aggressive for me, and I'd never really stuck the clean and jerk together (on the one occasion I had, I'd topped out at around 85kg).
So much better foundations for my current (and foreseeably long-term) goals.
But what of my powerlifting ambitions?
Needless to say, the canon lifts would have shifted a fair bit (I like to think so) in the 8 months that I have dedicated to Olympic lifting, although I'd probably only be benching 105kg 1RM, but there we go.
Oh, I have also managed the above
whilst cutting 7kg in weight, too, with a lot of people commenting on how much leaner and more compact I look now versus February this year. Still, that must have meant fewer gains with a z.
To finish...
I'll start a new log at some point detailing the ins and outs of an Olympic lifting diet whilst trying to regain some of my lost weight and ethereal, un-achieved gains. We'll see how we go.
Thanks for reading, and hope somebody found it interesting/useful/amusing.
